I hear tell this is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Major League baseball strike that eliminated the 1994 World Series and chopped off the latter part of the regular season.
The reason, of course, was follow the money.
The idea that millionaire baseball players were walking out on billionaire owners made fans feel like singing the old Bob Dylan song “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” That’s because collectively we were… and still are. They need us, and we come in to lay our money down.
When the season and World Series were canceled, I heard a lot of comments from outraged fans who swore they’d quit following the game any more, that they’d quit coming to the ballpark. Indeed, a lot of money was lost in the latter part of 1994 and attendance for America’s Pastime at first fell off by quite a bit.
I wasn’t fooled. Remembering that P.T. Barnum told us “There’s a sucker born every minute,” I understood that eventually all would be forgotten and the fans would be back in the stands, the players would be rolling in the dough again, as would be the owners.
I dismissed the grousing I heard from so many followers of the game as something akin to a lovers’ spat with an abusive spouse. I’m sad to say I was right.
It wasn’t long afterward that Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa and later Barry Bonds began to whip fans into a frenzy by launching the most home runs ever in a season, with McGuire checking in with 70 and Sosa 66. Then the obviously and mysteriously beefed up Bonds drilled 73 to set the current record.
My cynical mind believed through it all that something was manufactured here in an effort to bring back the throngs of fans and fill the coffers. I thought about juiced up baseballs, but it wasn’t until years later that we learned that steroids for sluggers may have been the culprit. And though Major League Baseball did not openly encourage it, neither did it discourage it while it was happening. Follow the money.
We fans are a lot like common everyday citizens who are constantly and easily misled and conned by politicians who actually care not a whit about us, like they say, but do the bidding of their rich corporate funders. This marketing game has been played with great skill since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the birth of trickle-down economics, which got the unwashed masses to believe the bullshit that giving the rich tax cuts would cause the money to trickle down to us.
I was one of those who was upset by the baseball strike of millionaire ballplayers against billionaire owners. I pledged not to go to the ballpark as a result, but broke my vow twice. I went to Tiger Stadium in 1995 because my two children got in free and were among those honored for a special Boy Scouts Day. I attended a game at Coors Field in Denver in 2011 because son Robby had scored tickets to watch Tigers’ ace Justin Verlander beat up on the Rockies on Father’s Day of that year.
Other than my two failures, falling off the wagon, I have avoided being present for all major athletic events, including University of Michigan football games in the Big House and MUS football and basketball contests. I’ve never been to Comerica Park or Ford Field and I have no intention to ever set foot inside either venue.
It’s horribly expensive to go to such spectacles. It costs a lot of money for gas to travel there, to park your vehicle, to get into the game and to purchase refreshments and food at what I have long called “Disney Prices.” It would be common to drop more than $150 just to get squeezed into nosebleed Bob Uecker seats (“He missed the tag, he missed the tag”).
I’m a lot better off sitting at home in front of the television, turning off the sound of the commercials when they intrude and having the ability to get up and go to the loo or grab a cheap beverage or snack while there’s a deliberate break in the action.
As I grow old and crotchety, I have come to wonder why I ever let myself become a sucker and spend big bucks on spoiled, rich athletes and fat cat super wealthy corporate pig dogs.
It didn’t help this past week when I learned that Verlander, with all his massive talent, has enough power to banish a reporter from the Detroit Free Press from a post-game press conference because he doesn’t like what he writes. Sounds too much like President Trump.
I am perfectly comfortable weaning myself away from big-time athletics. I still enjoy high school football and basketball games, but worry about the influence of money.
About the only team I still follow from afar is the Detroit Lions. And that’s because I’m an incurable masochist.
Sir,
The comment about “trickle down economics” has been true since man came out of the cave and used trinkets in exchange for desired objects or food. Regan’s administration just gave a name to it. You need to broaden your literary horizons. Your Republican bashing is tiresome.
1% of Americans control 40% of the countries wealth. Trick Down Economics was to be discredited long ago.
I prefer the pros. The rampant recruiting cheating that is so much a part of the NCAA – and the pretense of some of those “student athletes”, with full complicity of their schools, is shameful.